The Daily - The Return of the Governor

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

In recent years, governors have sat on the sidelines as the federal government has commanded most of the attention and airtime. Today, we explore how the pandemic has generated a revival of state and local politics — and made governors into national heroes. Guest: Alexander Burns, who covers national politics for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Governors of both parties have taken a lead role in confronting the crisis, asserting themselves in ways that have only highlighted the initial lack of seriousness from the White House.With his widely watched coronavirus briefings, one governor in particular has stood out: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Here’s how the leader of New York State has become a figurehead for the Democratic Party.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Today. For the past decade, governors have been relegated to the sidelines of American politics. Alex Burns on how the pandemic is changing that. Alex Burns on how the pandemic is changing that. It's Friday, April 3rd. So Alex, up until the past few months, how would you describe the role of governors in the United States? Look, I think that they were very much the supporting cast of American politics. They perform a function that I think people in their states recognize is super important, but they have not been seen for a decade or more now as the kind of people who

the great mass of American voters look to for inspiration, direction, national leadership in any kind of crisis. You said a decade or more. So that's a change. Right. Now, for most of the three or four decades prior to that, governors were seen as the most capable leaders in the country. as the most capable leaders in the country.

Between 1976 and 2008, the country was exclusively led in the White House by former governors, except for a four-year period. I remember when I announced for president in December of 1974. Yeah, Jimmy Carter. There was a major headline on the editorial page of the Atlanta Constitution that said, Jimmy Carter. There was a major headline on the editorial page of the Atlanta Constitution that said, Jimmy Carter is running for what? And the what was about this day.

Followed by Ronald Reagan. Good evening to all of you from California. Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about issues. A little interregnum there for George H.W. Bush, then back to Bill Clinton. Welcome to one of my favorite places. The old statehouse is an important building to all Arkansans, but it's particularly special to me. Then George W. Bush. I come from Texas. I've got a record as a governor. I've been setting agendas. It was a country led for decades by governors.

And starting with Barack Obama, and now obviously President Trump, that pattern has been totally broken. And why do you think that was during that 30 or 40 year period that we all looked to governors? You know, for decades, governors would run for president on a narrative of getting stuff done. president on a narrative of getting stuff done. And so many of the issues that were at the forefront of American politics relating to the size and function of government, relating to the budget and education and health care, issues like abortion rights. These were issues that governors could deal with at the state level and then take that narrative to the national level. could deal with at the state level and then take that narrative to the national level. Starting in 2008, and really the years before that, all politics become so heavily nationalized. The media environment is totally different, where people are learning about the political scene

more from cable news and the internet than from their local paper. And the issues facing the country are so much bigger or seem so much bigger And the issues facing the country are so much bigger or seem so much bigger than the issues facing any one state. The Iraq war, the financial crisis, and the Great Recession. These are not challenges that a governor necessarily has a good story to tell about confronting. So the nationalization of American politics is kind of the death knell for the governor as the go-to figure in our politics. So how does this crisis change that dynamic? or inconsistent leadership from the federal level for months now, it has really fallen to leaders on the state level to deal one by one with this crisis that has completely consumed everything else going on in public life. And when do you think you started to see that

when it came to the governors? I want to welcome everyone to the state of Washington, a place where people are very much united and active and confident in our ability to take strong measures to slow down the spread of this epidemic. So this really starts in Washington state, which is the first place in the country with a large cluster of coronavirus cases. I'm very pleased that the 7 million people in Washington, I think, are united themselves as being leaders and acting responsibly right now. Jay Inslee, he's a respected longtime figure in Democratic politics. He ran for president last year for a couple months on a platform of mainly confronting

climate change. And he became sort of a popular figure in the party, but didn't make it very far in the Democratic race. So starting today, I am ordering pursuant to my emergency powers that certain events in King, Snohomish and Pierce County with more than 250 people are prohibited by order of the governor. Early in March, he takes steps to lock down big sections of his state, especially in the Seattle area, which has the most severe early outbreak of the coronavirus. Go ahead.

What are the penalties exactly for not abiding by the ban? The penalties are you might be killing your granddad if you don't do it. And I'm serious about this. The principal reason this is going to work is for people to understand the consequences of lack of community responsibility. Not far from Washington state, you have other outbreaks in California. The fact is, the experience we're having on the ground throughout the state of California require us to adjust our thinking and to adjust our activities. Where Governor Gavin Newsom, a guy who has been talked about in Democratic politics for a long time as a future presidential candidate, decides by the middle of the month that he is going to

need to take much more aggressive steps than the federal government. And there's a recognition of our interdependence that requires of this moment that we direct a statewide order for people to stay at home. He is one of the first big state governors to issue what we now think of as a lockdown order. We are confident that the people of the state of California will abide by it. They'll do the right thing. They'll meet this moment. They'll step up as they have. We're now at a critical time here in Ohio in regard to the coronavirus. But it's not just Democrats and it's not just heavily coastal urban states taking these kind of steps in March. The decisions that we make as individuals in the next few days, the next several weeks, will really determine how many lives are going to be lost in Ohio. Pretty early in the month, you also have Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of

Ohio, taking some of the most aggressive measures to close schools, ban large public gatherings, even at a point when Ohio has a tiny number of confirmed cases. But at the time that Mike DeWine essentially shuts down Ohio, you don't have any kind of message like that coming from the leader of his own party, President Trump. And here is the truth. With or without a test, the virus is here. It lives among us. And we must be at war with it. This enemy is dangerous. It is relentless. And we must stop it from surviving, multiplying, and thriving. But at this point in the middle of March, most governors are not taking steps like these at all. And many governors are not even speaking publicly about the coronavirus as a looming threat to their own states. It is deep breath time. That's why all of a sudden Andrew Cuomo comes to the forefront.

First of all, this is not our first rodeo with this type of situation in New York. 1968, we had the Hong Kong flu. 2009, we had the swine flu, avian flu, Ebola, SARS, MERS. And what strikes you about the way Cuomo is handling this? Look, when you have a national scale crisis, typically it is the president who people hear from every day about the threat that is coming into their homes and into their neighborhoods and what their government is going to be doing to help protect them. That's not happening here from the White House. Where it does start to happen is Albany, where Andrew Cuomo, who is one of the

longest serving, most prominent governors in the country, in the state that is home to much of the national media, uses that platform to speak to an audience across his state, but well beyond his state, about the dilemma confronting governors like him. This is a dramatic time and an unprecedented time. And great challenges require great leaders and great solutions. And that's what this is. Every single day now, the country hears from Andrew Cuomo about the nature of the threat confronting New York. In many cases, the really specific resourcing issues facing the state. We have 53,000 hospital beds in the state of New York. We have 3,000 ICU beds. This is the kind of nitty gritty of governing that most Americans have not paid a whole lot of attention to over the last decade, at least as it pertains to government at the state level. He mixes it together with these

sort of philosophizing pep talks for the state. Sometimes in these positions, you have to make difficult decisions. Talking about the emotional strain and the anxiety that people are facing in a way that I think most people would traditionally expect from a president. But my adage in these disasters, emergencies has always been, do everything you can, prepare for the worst, hope for the best. And the most consistent message throughout all this time is that the measures he's taking are an effort to hold back the worst of the problem, but that in order to actually meet the problem and fix the problem, he is going to need a lot more help from the federal government. government. Each of these governors is experiencing what is probably the most important moment in their political lives. They are all saying quite pointedly that they cannot master this moment on their own, that without the resources and the leadership of the federal government, there's only so much that each state can do piece by piece. We'll be right back.

Alex, so far we've talked about what a handful of early acting governors have been up to. As this pandemic has spread across the country and more and more governors have to decide how to approach this, how are you seeing that breakdown, kind of governor by governor? Well, by late March. This morning, I have signed an executive order which institutes a stay-at-home directive. No Maryland resident should be leaving their home. You have 16 states that are in some form of lockdown. Today, I'm issuing a stay-home, stay-safe executive order for all Michiganders. With a population totaling nearly half the country.

I signed a second executive order stating clearly that the rules I have laid out supersede all other orders issued by county or municipal officials. They are a sobering reminder of the challenge we are confronting as one New Jersey family, as I've said before. Most of these states are pretty blue, pretty urban. There are a couple redder states in there, states with Republican governors. But for the most part, the overarching pattern here is big states with Democratic governors moving fastest. But that, of course, creates a pretty messy and inconsistent approach in a state-by-state way. That's right. And some of the biggest states in the country that don't have cases detected early, governors who are inclined to act aggressively, go weeks and weeks without taking similar steps. These are states largely with conservative Republican governors who are closely aligned with President

Trump. Florida is probably the best example of this. This is a state governed by a Republican named Ron DeSantis. His whole campaign in 2018 was about his support for President Trump. And he doesn't shut down the state for weeks and weeks. You know, it's just a different situation. We're a big, diverse state. If you look at New York State, obviously New York City,

surrounding areas, some of the other places, you know, they're just in a different situation. But I look forward to the guidelines. And he gets publicly frustrated with people leaving other states that are locked down and coming to Florida, pointing a finger at New York in particular. But yet people are riding the subway in New York City. People fly all over the place from some of the hot zones.

I mean, you know, really? How does that make any sense if we're trying to contain this thing? But this is what happens when you don't have a uniform response around the country. And it becomes very, very clear over the course of March and the very beginning of April that Florida is going to have a huge problem on its hands. Alex, you have identified a bunch of contiguous states in the South where the leaders, generally Republicans, loyal to President Trump, seem resistant to closing down their states. And I wonder why you think that that is the case. You know, I think some of this is ideological, that Republican governors, and particularly Southern governors have a different

view of whether it's appropriate and when it's appropriate for a governor to use his power to halt business, commerce, normal cultural life. Some of these states are more rural states. And in much of the country, I think even to this day, there's still the perception that the coronavirus is an urban problem. And clearly, that is the case, that it is an urban problem. But it's also clear that it's not just an urban problem. And, you know, in so many of these southern states, it really does also boil down to loyalty to the president and partisanship. Governor DeSantis in Florida is really the perfect example of this. So I'm in contact with them. And basically, you know, I've said, are you guys recommending this? As he, for weeks and weeks, resists taking more aggressive action to mandate social distancing, says pretty much explicitly, if the White House told me to act differently, the task force has not recommended that to me. If they do, obviously that would be something that would carry a lot of weight with me. That would carry a lot of weight with me.

It's as close as we get to hearing a Republican governor who's not taking action say to the White House, please tell me what to do. And so it's not an accident that the Republican governors, for the most part, who do break with the president are people who are so well established in their home states, like Mike DeWine, or who are leading states that aren't really that conservative to begin with, like Maryland and Massachusetts, where they may have more political freedom to go their own way than a Republican governor of Georgia in President Trump's Republican Party. I can also imagine how as a governor of a more rural state where the virus is not really hugely present, there would be a natural inclination not to shut down social and commercial life because many of those states

kind of have an institutional social distance. Houses are really far away from each other. There isn't density. And so it would be natural to wait until the federal government said, no, no, no, you need to do this now. I think that's really right. And I think that sort of magnifying that even further, the governors in these states are largely elected by constituencies who are the most representative of the dynamics that you're talking about. That the Republican governor of Georgia, which is not an overwhelmingly rural state, is elected with the overwhelming support of the rural parts of the state. So even at the point where you see an outbreak in Atlanta, an outbreak in Miami or Tampa or Jacksonville. The governors of these

states still have to worry about pressure from the business community statewide and from voters who may see what's going on in Miami or Atlanta as largely irrelevant to their own lives. And so these governors are really looking to the White House for leadership and direction on what exactly they should be doing. We will be extending our guidelines to April 30th to slow the spread. On Tuesday, we will be finalizing these plans and providing a summary of our findings, supporting data and strategy to the American people. Right. And they got it, many of them, in the last couple of days, is my sense, when the president disclosed those really scary models that said...

They're shocking numbers. You know, you're talking about deaths. Even at the low end, you were shocked when you see 100 and 120,000 and 200,000 people over potentially a very short period of time. 200,000 could die. And it felt like one by one, the holdout states started to lock themselves down. The president just the other day announced they're going to do a 30-day extension for the current guidelines. I mean, I think it's clear that that represents effectively a national pause. That's really how you know so much of this was about partisanship and presidential leadership. When the president goes out and says, basically, best case scenario, 100,000 people are going to die.

You see one by one these states flip almost overnight. So given those circumstances and given the unique situation in Florida, I'm going to be doing an executive order today directing all Floridians to limit movements and personal interactions outside the home to only those... So in the end, Alex, now that we know that a lot of these holdouts would only act when they got a definitive signal from the president to act, and in some cases that meant waiting months into this pandemic. Do we think that there are going to be meaningful consequences, either good or bad, for the governors who waited, as these governors did, or for the governors who acted very early on behalf of their constituents? You know, right now, the public opinion information we have suggests that governors across the board are enjoying a real surge in confidence and support from their voters.

The overwhelming political test going forward is going to be how did you handle this crisis and how many lives did did you save? And how quickly did you bring back the economy? Looking at the trend lines in the states that have moved most slowly to confront this, it's hard not to anticipate a very, very difficult stretch for these governors as the consequences of their choices become really clear. Finally, Alex, I wonder about another aspect of this, the role of the president typically as the source of calm and comfort in moments like this. Thinking, of course, of FDR and his fireside chats. That hasn't necessarily happened here. It has been instead the governors. That's right. You know, what people have heard from President Trump when he has been attempting

to calm the country has been a message that this isn't so bad and it might actually be over pretty fast. That's a message he has moved off of in the last week. What they have been hearing from governors... In a time of war, we have to make sacrifices. And I thank each and every one of you for all that you are doing every single day. ...has been a different kind of candor about just how tough this is going to be and how long it might last. This crisis can take a toll on our mental health. Check in with family. Call your loved ones. Go for a walk. Read those

books on your list or even go outside and put your holiday lights back up. Really a pretty direct message of comfort to people who are understandably really scared right now. Practice humanity. We don't talk about practicing humanity, but now if ever there's a time to practice humanity, the time is now. The time is now to show some kindness, show some compassion to people. You hear them talking with a level of emotional rawness and directness about the difficulty ahead, really telling their states that they are facing many, many long and difficult months and asking voters to trust them that it will be okay in the end. Alex, thank you very much. Thank you.

I am convinced that we can do this. We can do this. We must keep our wits about us. That means all of us. Yeah, we have a problem. Yes, we will deal with it. Yes, we will overcome it. But let's find our better selves in doing it. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Teneray. On Thursday, the Department of Labor said that 6.6 million Americans filed for

unemployment benefits last week as the pandemic wiped out jobs across the economy. Over the past two weeks, 10 million Americans have filed for such benefits in what economists are describing as a financial catastrophe. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during a conference call, called a stunning development. More than 6.6 million filing for unemployment last week alone. Does that just not take your breath away? I mean, the virus does too, but 6.6 million filing for unemployment. The job losses are now a global phenomenon. In Britain, almost 1 million people have applied for welfare benefits. Austria has its highest unemployment rate since the end of World War II. In Norway, the unemployment rate has jumped from 2.3% to 10.4%.

And in Spain, more than 800,000 workers have lost their jobs. Meanwhile, the Times reports that the U.S. is expected to advise all Americans to begin wearing masks or some form of face covering whenever they go out in public to avoid spreading the virus. The Daily is made by Theo Balcom, Andy Mills, Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lindsay Garrison, Annie Brown, Claire Tennesketter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon-Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Doerr, Chris Wood, Jessica Chung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Lee Young, Jonathan Wolfe, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Mark George, Eric Krupke, Mark George, Luke Vanderploeg, Adiza Egan, Kelly Prime, Julia Longoria, Sindhu Yanasambandhan, Jasmine Aguilera, MJ Davis-Lynn, Austin Mitchell, Sayer Kavado,

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